Krauthammer: America sidelined, barely relevant in Mideast

Monday

Jun 24, 2013 at 2:00 AM

The war in Syria, started by locals, is now a regional conflict, the meeting ground of two warring blocs. On one side, the radical Shiite bloc led by Iran, which overflies Iraq to supply Bashar al-Assad and sends Hezbollah to fight for him. Behind them lies Russia, which stationed ships offshore, provided the regime with weaponry and essentially claimed Syria as a Russian protectorate.

The war in Syria, started by locals, is now a regional conflict, the meeting ground of two warring blocs. On one side, the radical Shiite bloc led by Iran, which overflies Iraq to supply Bashar al-Assad and sends Hezbollah to fight for him. Behind them lies Russia, which stationed ships offshore, provided the regime with weaponry and essentially claimed Syria as a Russian protectorate.

On the other side are the Sunni Gulf states terrified of Iranian domination (territorial and soon nuclear); non-Arab Turkey, convulsed by an internal uprising; and fragile Jordan, dragged in by geography.

And behind them? No one. The natural ally of what began as a spontaneous, secular, liberationist uprising in Syria was the U.S.

He talked "chain of custody," while Iran and Russia, hardly believing their luck, reached for regional domination — the ayatollahs solidifying their "Shiite crescent," Vladimir Putin seizing the opportunity to dislodge America as regional dominator.

And when finally forced to admit his red line had been crossed — a "game changer," Obama had warned — what did he do? Promise the rebels small arms and ammunition. That's it? It's meaningless: The rebels are already receiving small arms from the Gulf states.

Obama gave 39 (or 42?) health-care reform speeches. How many on the war in Syria, in which he has now involved the U.S., however uselessly? Zero.

Serious policymaking would dictate we either do something that will alter the course of the war, or do nothing. Instead, Obama has chosen to do just enough to give the appearance of having done something.

It gets worse. Despite his commitment to inaction, Obama was forced by events to send F-16s, Patriot missiles and a unit of the 1st Armored Division (indicating preparation for a possible "larger force," explains The Washington Post) — to Jordan.

America's most reliable Arab ally needs protection. It is threatened not just by a flood of refugees but by the rise of Iran's radical Shiite bloc with ambitions beyond Syria, beyond even Jordan and Lebanon to Yemen, where, it was reported Wednesday, Iran is arming separatists.

Obama has thus been forced back into the vacuum he created — but at a big disadvantage.

We are now scrambling to put together some kind of presence in Jordan as a counterweight to the Iran-Hezbollah-Russia bloc.

The tragedy is that we once had a counterweight, and Obama threw it away. He still thinks the total evacuation of Iraq is a foreign policy triumph. In fact, his inability — unwillingness? — to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement that would have left behind a small but powerful residual force in Iraq is precisely what compels him today to re-create in Jordan a pale facsimile of that regional presence.

Whatever the wisdom of the Iraq War in the first place, when Obama came to office in 2009 the war was won. Al-Qaida in Iraq was routed. Nouri al-Maliki's government had taken down the Sadr Shiite extremists. Casualties were at a wartime low, the civil war essentially over.

We had a golden opportunity to establish a relationship with an Iraq still under U.S. sway. With our evacuation, however, Iraqi airspace today effectively belongs to Iran — over which it is flying weapons, troops and advisers to turn the tide in Syria. Now we're trying to hold the line in Jordan.

Obama is learning very late that, for a superpower, inaction is a form of action. You can abdicate, but you can't hide. History will find you. It has now found Obama.

letterscharleskrauthammer.com

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